


Black And White

by kuonji



Series: Beginnings And Endings [5]
Category: Starsky & Hutch
Genre: Angst, Character Study, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-06
Updated: 2012-08-06
Packaged: 2017-11-11 14:33:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,229
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/479541
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kuonji/pseuds/kuonji
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Third of the Through and Over arc.</p><p>
  <em>It was in the file now. In writing. Somewhere in the world, in black and white, it said that what he had done with Howie wasn't his fault.</em>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Black And White

**Author's Note:**

> Alternative Links:  
> <http://starskyhutch911.livejournal.com/413260.html>  
> <http://kuonji14.livejournal.com/34785.html>

"Detective Hutchinson."

Hutch inclined his head politely and seated himself in the chair that was remarkably similar to the ones in Dobey's office. One city-decorated office was much like any other, he supposed.

The other man was waiting for him to speak, but he found he wasn't sure where to start.

"This is regarding the Sloan case?" Ashburn finally prompted.

"Uh, yes." Once kick-started, he blurted out the words in a hurry. "I have information that may affect the case."

Ashburn frowned. As well he should. Experienced detectives did not withhold relevant information. But all he said was, "All right."

"It's about the rape charges." He was proud of how his voice remained steady. "You know that it wasn't... that I asked Sloan to let me--" He cursed himself inwardly. Bashfulness was something a cop who worked homicide should have gotten rid of years ago. For Christ's sake, while still in uniform, he'd learned to give detailed descriptions about the most lurid activities on the stand without an outward qualm. This shouldn't be any different.

Ashburn's face cleared. "Don't worry about that, Detective. We have more than enough corroborating evidence that it was a coerced and even a violent act. Yours and Detective Starsky's reports, of course, and your hospital records, as well as eye witness accounts from multiple law enforcement officers and agents regarding the scene of the crime... It would be nearly impossible for the defense to claim that the sex was voluntary."

 _Nearly_ impossible.

Hutch nodded. As Ashburn started to make dismissing motions, however, he cleared his throat. "There's something else."

Ashburn seemed to gauge his expression. Hutch had seen the man in court. There, he was ruthlessly focused and sharp. Normally, however, he seemed aloof, as if he were solving puzzles in his own head. He laid those absent, faintly curious eyes on Hutch now. "Go on."

"Do you think it would matter if I've had a sexual relationship with another man before?"

Ashburn's pale eyebrows raised a few millimeters, but he remained calm. "It might. Have you?"

Had he? Some days, Hutch wasn't sure if what he'd had with Howie counted as a 'relationship' or not. Starsky seemed convinced that it didn't, of course. Things were so mixed up lately, it was getting harder and harder to stick to any one opinion on the matter.

"When I was younger, ah, in junior high, I had a brief... experience with a man in his late thirties. We-- We had sex for most of that time."

"How brief?"

"Excuse me? Oh, a little over three months."

Ashburn nodded, still abstractly. "So as a child, for a period of about three months, you were continually molested by a male sexual predator."

It felt like being hit in the face with a pail of ice cold water.

Hutch struggled through the shock. "Wait a minute..."

But Ashburn went on: "I assume it wasn't reported at the time?"

"Uh, n-no. It wasn't." He leaned forward, uncomfortable with the way this was going. "Listen, it wasn't really like that. I _participated_." He'd been infatuated. Off his head. But that didn't change the fact that he had wanted it. Asked for it, often as not.

Ashburn frowned, looking, of all things, impatient. "What you wanted or didn't want doesn't matter. You were underage. The law -- at least, current law -- is very clear about that. Even if a child is willing, it's the adult's responsibility to prevent any inappropriate actions."

Hutch had never thought about it that way before. Automatically, he started searching for a loophole. He hadn't settled on one before Ashburn knocked him onto a different track once again.

"Did you engage in rough sex play with this man?"

The bald-faced question did not, for some reason, make Hutch angry. Ashburn gave the impression he didn't even personally care what the answer would be. That made it easier to tell him, "He got a little rougher towards the end, but he never hurt me." As soon as the dumb virgin had caught a clue, Howie had lost interest in wooing him with sweet nothings. "Or vice versa," he remembered to add.

"And do you regret the relationship?"

Regret? Could he-- Was he allowed to regret a thing that he could have prevented but hadn't? A thing that he had, in effect, chosen by default. "If I could change the past," he said slowly, tentatively testing the thought even as he voiced it, "I would want it never to have happened."

"Right." Ashburn nodded, taking the answer as a bank teller might take Hutch's identification card -- efficiently private but uninvolved. His eyes went slightly unfocused. "It might be a problem since it wasn't reported, but not a big one. I don't think it will hurt the case. In some ways, it might even help."

Hutch had all but forgotten about the case. "Help?"

Ashburn harrumphed in a surprised way. "You're a hero, Detective! You suffered from abuse yourself as a child, yet you were willing to take your partner's place in front of a dangerous suspect bent on sexual assault."

Hutch had never thought about _that_ in quite that way either. "I didn't really think about that at the time..." he demurred, self-conscious.

Ashburn locked on to him suddenly with his courtroom gaze. That laser focus cut through Hutch's inner turmoil, forcing his attention. "You need to start thinking of it that way, Detective. I know it's difficult, especially for law enforcement officers like yourself, but _you were a victim_. Both as a child and as an adult.

"Juries are made up of human beings. If they see you as sympathetic, they will see Sloan as the monster. If you seem unsure and start to make excuses for yourself and your attackers, Sloan will become the victim. And as soon as he becomes the injured party for one charge, all the other charges start leaking credibility.

"I am _not_ losing this case. Sloan deserves the highest penalty the state of California can give him. I think you agree with me, don't you?"

Crime scene photos of the girls Sloan had murdered crossed Hutch's mind. "Yes. Of course."

Ashburn's spurt of energy seemed to fade. "Good." He picked up a pen and pulled a legal pad toward him, writing quickly. "Who else knows about this?"

"Just you, and... one other person," Hutch told him, hit by the enormity of that fact. Two people in the entire world. If he had to bring it up in court, that number was going to balloon in the space of a day -- completely out of his control. He gripped the tops of his thighs to keep himself from shivering.

Ashburn looked up from his writing. Hutch didn't want to see any judgement, or god forbid any sympathy, so he averted his gaze.

"Here's what I'm going to do," Ashburn said, sounding business-like. "I'll put a note in the file about what you told me today. But because of the possibly volatile contents, I don't think I want to include it into our official testimony. It's sometimes hard to say which way the jury might go with information like this."

Hutch glanced up, catching nothing on Ashburn's face but the concentration of a professional. "In the meantime, I'll call up a psychologist as an expert witness and have him or her ready, in case the subject does come up. If I feel it's necessary, I'm going to ask you to consult with him so that he can support your statements."

Hutch nodded, slightly dazed. "That makes sense."

"Very well." Ashburn finished his notes and placed his pen down atop them. "I'll let you know. Thank you, Detective." He stood and offered his hand.

Hutch rose belatedly, his joints jerking like clockwork, and took it. Ashburn squeezed and said, in a much different tone, "Detective." Hutch waited, wary of more surprises. "You _are_ a hero, you know. I'd like you to believe that." The man smiled, looking actually fully engaged in the conversation for a second. "Have a good day, then." With that, his mind seemed to wander back to his inner landscape.

Hutch mumbled a stunned reply and left the office. He felt as if he had just leaped from the platform onto a departing train but wasn't sure yet if it was going his way.

In the elevator, he let out a slow breath and stared at the numbered floors lighting up in turn. A woman to his left was taking notes on a memo pad. A man to his right was fidgeting and checking his wristwatch every other second. Just before they reached the ground floor, Hutch lunged forward and slapped the '2' button. He ignored the strange looks he got and stumbled out on the second floor.

He found the bathroom, thankfully empty, and shut himself into a stall. He leaned his forehead against the cool metal of the door and replayed bits of his interview with Ashburn obsessively in his head.

__

... molested by a male sexual predator ...

... What you wanted or didn't want doesn't matter ...

... Even if a child is willing, it's the adult's responsibility to prevent ...

... it's the adult's responsibility ...

... the adult's ...

He told himself to calm down, timing his breaths until he was taking at least three seconds for each inhale, three seconds for each exhale. The neutral, familiar smells of paint and industrial cleaning agents steadied him.

__

... I don't think it will hurt the case. In some ways, it might even help ...

... Sloan deserves the highest penalty the state of California can give him ...

... You are a hero, you know ...

... I'll put a note in the file ...

Feeling slightly less disconnected from the world, he exited the stall and washed his face at the sink. His face was still damp when he came out of the stairwell exit on the ground floor.

His partner was waiting for him.

"How'd it go?" Starsky asked, bouncing nervously on his toes.

__

... What you wanted or didn't want doesn't matter ...

"Fine." He frowned. "How'd you know I'd come out the stairs?"

Starsky stuck his hands in his back pockets. "I figured you'd want some time alone." Hutch flipped between pleasure and annoyance whenever Starsky displayed such a feat of telepathy. Today, he decided on pleasure. Starsky looked askance at him as they headed out together. "Want to get some lunch? I'll buy."

"Sure. You choose where." He gave his partner a sidelong glance. Starsky was practically vibrating. "Didn't you sit down the entire time?"

His partner looked chagrined and shrugged without answering. "How does hot dogs at the park sound?"

Hutch was surprised for a moment. He didn't much care for hot dogs, and Starsky knew it. Then he realized that the park was exactly the place to be right now -- no suffocating walls, no loud noises, no crowds today on a weekday, green things all around. "Yeah, okay."

He ignored the probing looks Starsky shot him and punched him lightly in the arm. "Let's go."

The line was long with people out for lunch, so he'd only just turned away from the stand, two hot dogs in each hand, when Starsky jogged up from where he'd parked the Torino. "Plenty of onions and relish on mine?" he asked with a grin.

"Load it up yourself," Hutch answered. "And you owe me three dollars."

"I'm good for it!" Starsky snagged his share and proceeded to heap it up with heartburn. Hutch shook his head indulgently. He was feeling more relaxed already. They were lucky enough to score a bench by the pond. No shade, but it wasn't too hot a day.

He sat first and Starsky settled beside him, so close that their shoulders touched.

Starsky had inhaled all but a few bites of his second hot dog, and Hutch had finished his first, before Hutch spoke. "Ashburn said it won't hurt the case. Might even help." He could sense the tightly held-back questions in the man beside him. "He said it makes me a hero."

"You are one."

"He said I wasn't responsible. For Howie."

"Well, of course not." Starsky sounded so matter-of-fact, it was almost cavalier. Hutch sighed, having no will to argue Starsky into comprehending what a big deal this was.

__

... you were a victim. Both as a child and as an adult ...

... responsibility ...

... I'll put a note ...

It was in the file now. In writing.

Somewhere in the world, in black and white, it said that what he had done with Howie wasn't his fault.

He chewed thoughtfully, separating out the tastes of tangy ketchup and zesty mustard and salted meat and spongy bread. He tilted his face up to feel the sun on it.

The law was clear, Ashburn had said. Even if they might have to bring in a specialist to convince the jury so, there was at least one by-the-book prosecuting lawyer who believed Hutch without a doubt.

He felt free in a way that was completely different from when he had told Starsky. Ashburn had been objective, impersonal, oriented only on the case. For Starsky to support him was natural. For Ashburn to do so was... validation.

He balled up the wrapper for the hot dog and pitched it over Starsky's head into the trash. Two points.

__

... And do you regret the relationship? ...

Why hadn't Starsky ever asked him that? _Because he knows the answer, dummy_ , he admonished himself.

"I wish it hadn't happened," he admitted anyway, just to hear it out loud one more time. "I wish I'd never met him."

Starsky swallowed hurriedly, making a painful-sounding _ulp_ , and stared at him with clear astonishment.

"You didn't think so?" Hutch exclaimed, sudden fear dashing all the lazy, good feelings from just a few seconds ago. God, if even Starsky might question him...

"Of course I did! Didn't you think I knew? Damn it, Hutch, what the hell!" Starsky sounded anxious, but also irritated.

"All right, all right, calm down already."

"No, seriously, Hutch. Don't you know I'm on your side?"

"I know that..."

"But...?" Starsky demanded.

"But you can't help what you might feel. I understand that." He concentrated on polishing off his hot dog, just for an excuse to occupy his hands and mouth and eyes. Part of him was angry that for all of Starsky's apparent mind-reading skills when it came to Hutch, he couldn't really understand how Hutch felt.

There were no gray areas for Starsky. Right was always right, and wrong always wrong. A thing should always be what it was, no matter whose perspective it was seen from. He just wasn't equipped to understand.

"I can't believe you think I'd blame you or something. When have I ever made you think I'd do a thing like that?"

"You haven't," Hutch placated, tired. He'd been on some kind of rollercoaster for months, and he just wanted off. "It's just, it can't be easy, knowing about-- me."

"Who said it would be? I didn't sign up to be your friend because it was easy." After a tense silence, Starsky turned his body toward him, hitching a leg up. He touched Hutch's cheek with one warm palm, making a visible effort to quell his own temper. "Hey, what's going on in that blond head of yours?"

Hutch sighed heavily, trying to release all his unreasoning frustration. "I don't know."

"It's been a bad day, huh?"

"No, it's..."

Starsky's other hand landed on his thigh, near the knee, and squeezed, drawing Hutch's gaze down to it. The memory slammed into him out of nowhere -- of Howie doing just the same thing.

Except Howie had followed by sliding his hand up, to the very edge of Hutch's shorts, then down again, then up a little farther, and Hutch had been holding his breath, his ears burning from the noises coming from Howie's movie, watching that hand as if it was his whole world, while Howie wasn't so much as glancing in his direction...

He jerked his leg away.

Starsky looked startled, then hurt, then--

"Don't," Hutch said, cutting off the 'Sorry' he could see forming on Starsky's mouth. He refused to take pity from his partner.

But he would-- he needed to take comfort.

He reached after Starsky's retreating hand with both his own, and Starsky let it be caught without comment.

"Don't stop," he said gruffly. _Don't stop touching me. I've already lost some of your respect. He can't take this, too._ He leaned forward, curling inward and avoiding Starsky's eyes.

Starsky's other hand returned slowly, hesitantly to his knee, and stayed when Hutch didn't shake him off again. He knew Starsky would never touch him like that. Never.

Hutch flipped daily back and forth between relief and regret that Starsky knew. He couldn't decide right now which one he felt more strongly.

"I wasn't alone when I met him the first time," he confessed to the dirt at their feet. The ground in front of the bench was scuffed bare of grass by countless pairs of shoes, belonging to people who sat here to eat their lunches or feed the ducks or admire the pond, or just to goof off after a day at school.

"Some of my friends were with me. He bought us ice cream and shot the breeze with us. Shit, we should have known better, but we were thirteen. We thought we knew everything. When we were getting ready to go, he told me to meet him the next day at his house. Pulled me aside and told me to keep it a secret -- so the other guys wouldn't get jealous."

He could hear Starsky's harsh breathing, but Starsky didn't say anything. He raised Starsky's hand back to his cheek and turned his face into it, grounding himself in the scent of his partner's skin.

"The thing is, they _would_ have been jealous. He was so... cool. So amazing. Like no other adult we knew. And he chose me. Out of everyone. He chose me."

Starsky made an angry noise, and he ran his thumb over Hutch's cheekbone. "That son of a bitch isn't going to touch you again. I swear it."

__

... What you wanted or didn't want doesn't matter ...

... doesn't matter ...

Starsky didn't understand at all. Not at all.

It was in the file now. In writing.

Somewhere in the world, in black and white, it said that Howie had never cared for Hutch one bit.

Despite what Howie had pretended, despite what he had caused Hutch to believe, that gullible, pretty-headed boy had been nothing more than a temporary toy to him. Prey. A silly memory to be laughed about and dismissed, chased down by a casually stolen chardonnay.

The hurt took his breath away. He could feel the miserable squelch of that last remnant of tentative hope. The hole inside him that that hope had been stretching thinner and thinner to fill for the last twenty-three years was finally empty. Aching.

It ached even more that this was one hurt he couldn't share with Starsky. His partner would never understand, and Hutch couldn't stand to have an argument about this.

"I'm sorry."

"Jesus, for what, Hutch?"

"Nothing. Never mind." He straightened and dropped Starsky's hand. He tossed the wrapper of his second hot dog toward the trash can as he stood, turning away before he knew whether it made it or not. "We should go."

  
END.

**Author's Note:**

>  _For Allie, who gave me advice. And for EC and JG again._  
>   
> 
> "Child sexual abuse became a public issue in the 1970s and 1980s. Prior to this point in time sexual abuse remained rather secretive and socially unspeakable. Studies on child molestation were nonexistent until the 1920s and the first national estimate of the number of child sexual abuse cases was published in 1948. By 1968 44 out of 50 U.S. states had enacted mandatory laws that required physicians to report cases of suspicious child abuse. Legal action began to become more prevalent in the 1970s with the enactment of the Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act in 1974 in conjunction with the creation of the National Center for Child Abuse and Neglect." ([Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_sexual_abuse))
> 
> Child sexual abuse cases made child testimony very popular in the 1980s, but it was quickly discredited again when the testimonies became obvious fantasy (e.g. "I saw him touching my sister. And I turned into Superman and flew through the window, and I saved her!"). Now, the collection of testimony from children must be done under very careful conditions to be admitted in court.
> 
> Ashburn may be slightly ahead of his time both in believing Hutch and in taking the abuse seriously. Hutch was lucky to have him and Starsky (and Captain Dobey) to back him up.
> 
> I suppose the way this story ends must seem depressing, but remember that by the end of "Over", Hutch is discovered to be wrong about his assessment of Starsky after all. I think the hot dog wrapper made it in. ;)
> 
>    
> [Beginnings And Endings Story Notes](http://kuonji14.livejournal.com/34497.html)  
>  
> 
>  
> 
> [Beginnings And Endings Index](http://kuonji14.livejournal.com/34137.html)  
> 
> 
> * * *
> 
> If you enjoyed this story, you might try these:    
>      [Lost And Found](http://community.livejournal.com/starskyhutch911/109395.html) (Starsky & Hutch), by kuonji    
>      [Not What You Think](http://community.livejournal.com/starskyhutch911/302989.html) (Starsky & Hutch), by kuonji    
>      [The Fight](http://www.fanfiction.net/s/3909014/1/The_Fight) (Gundam Seed), by kuonji  
>      [Follow The Black Rabbit](http://fanfic-jenny.tripod.com/id87.html) (Starsky & Hutch), by Wuemsel  
>      [In Fire And Blood](http://shslash.kassidyrae.com/fire_and_blood.htm) (Starsky & Hutch), by Kaye  
>      [Winter In London](http://w-a-i-d.livejournal.com/748.html) (Sherlock Holmes), by Waid  
> 


End file.
